The Lytro Illum lures buyers with the promise of refocusable images, but its image quality is disappointing and its price sky high.

You have to give Lytro some credit for going back to the drawing board and starting fresh with its second-generation camera, the Illum ($1,599). Its first attempt, the eponymous Lytro, didn't look, feel, or handle like a camera, and it suffered for it. Like the first attempt, the Illum is a light-field model. Its unique sensor design allows you to adjust the focus of an image after it's been captured. And, unlike the odd first-generation product, the Illum is more camera-shaped; it looks like a larger mirrorless body with a big lens attached, and it's got both physical controls and a touch-screen display. Image quality is a little better, but setting aside the tricks that the light-field image sensor is capable of producing, it still lags well behind smaller, less expensive cameras. If you're really in love with the idea of light field photography, the Illum is certainly a better camera than its predecessor, but I'm of the opinion that the technology isn't yet ready for prime time.

Design and FeaturesThe Illum is on the large side. It measures 3.4 by 5.7 by 6.5 inches (HWD) and is rather hefty at 2.1 pounds. Its fixed lens is huge, accounting for the bulk of the depth; it supports 72mm filters, and a big lens hood is included that adds another few inches to the depth when installed. The lens has two control rings—one to adjust the zoom and one to focus manually. The latter may seem out of place on a camera that promises to focus after the shot, but there are limitations to that functionality. There's no question that the Illum looks great—a lot of effort has been put into the industrial design and styling—but its size is going to be a turnoff for chic technologists who value gadgets that exude style.

The Illum's ability to adjust focus (and perspective) after an image has been captured is due to its image sensor design. Traditional camera sensors record the luminosity and color of incoming light, but the Illum uses what's called a light-field sensor that also records direction of incoming light. So yes, you can refocus portions of an image after a shot is captured, but depending on how far the lens is zoomed in and how close you are to your subject, the amount of refocusing varies. The Illum has a depth-of-field scale that shows the range of what can be refocused in an image, and if you tap the Lytro button behind the shutter release, you'll get a visual representation of what parts of the images can be brought into focus prior to capturing a shot. But you don't want to leave that view enabled all the time, as it makes the feed on the rear LCD noticeably choppy.

The lens can focus right up to its front element and out to infinity—I shot some images during a heavy snowstorm and I was able to focus on snow that had landed on the lens. As far as light gathering goes, it is equivalent to an f/2 lens on a traditional camera, with a full-frame zoom range of 30-250mm. That's a bit tighter than the 24mm wide-angle lenses you'll find on most compact cameras; the closest traditional model in terms of zoom range and light-gathering to the Illum is the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX10, which covers a 24-200mm range at a fixed f/2.8 aperture. The RX10 has a built-in flash, which the Illum lacks. The company sells an add-on flash, the Viltron JY680L ($249.99), but it's bulky and expensive.

In addition to the Lytro button and shutter release, there are a few other physical controls. There's a rear control dial and buttons to engage AF, lock exposure (AEL), set the focus distance to infinity, and to enter image playback mode (Fn). You'll use the touch screen to change other settings, such as the drive mode, self-timer, shooting mode, and white balance, and to navigate through and adjust menu settings.

The rear LCD is mounted on a hinge, which is useful for capturing images from low and high angles alike. But it doesn't face all the way forward for light-field selfies. It's larger than the displays that you'll find on most digital cameras—4 inches diagonally—and sharp at 1,152k dots. I had no complaints about its brightness; using it outside was no problem. Calling it a huge step up from the 1.5-inch, 16k-dot display used by the original Lytro is a serious understatement.

Wi-Fi is built-in, but the functionality is fairly limited. You can view images stored on the camera via an iOS app (sorry Windows Phone and Android users—there's no app for you at this time), but it's a slow process. It took about 10 seconds for each image to be viewable on my iPhone, and there's no caching involved—if you move from a picture to another, and then back to the one you were viewing previously, you'll have to endure that wait time again. The app also make it possible to upload images from the Lytro to the company's cloud service (so others can view and interact with photos via the Web), using your phone's cellular or Wi-Fi connection as a bridge.

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About the Author

Lead camera analyst for the PCMag consumer electronics reviews team, Jim Fisher is a graduate of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he concentrated on documentary video production. Jim's interest in photography really took off when he borrowed his father's Hasselblad 500C and light meter in 2007. He honed his writing skills at retailer B&H... See Full Bio

Lytro Illum

Lytro Illum

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